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Xenia Tashlitsky

Lost in Translation: Winnie-the-Pooh in Russian and English

According to Winnie-the-Pooh, “You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell

TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when

spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count” (Milne 220-221). For the professionals who translate

children’s literature from English to Russian, spelling is only the beginning. Not only does a

translator have to spell Tuesday, but he has to convey both the denotation, or dictionary

definition, and the connotation, or additional association, of the word in the context of the

rhythm and rhyme of the work as a whole. Furthermore, the translator has to communicate the

feeling, message, and main idea of the work to a reader who sees the world from a fundamentally

different linguistic, social, and cultural perspective.

Translating the meaning and the message of the work can be mutually exclusive. In the

word Tuesday, the denotation and the connotation of the word are almost identical. But what

about when Pooh says, “Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get

you. And all you can do is go where they can find you” (Milne 285)? In English, the expression

“things which you get” means both “things you find” and “things you understand,” and the

expression “things which get you” means both “things that find you” and “things that trick you,”

so the sentence is both a nonsensical rumination about the world of Pooh and a perfectly rational

observation about the incomprehensibility of poetry. But in Russian, the word “находить” only

means “to find,” and the word “Кричалки” (Zakhoder 195) only approximates the meaning of

the made-up word for the songs that Pooh hums to himself while he wanders through Hundred-

Acre Wood and digests his daily pot of “hunny” (Milne 25). And speaking of Hums, what about

a poem? Should the translator translate the sound, the sense, the rhythm, or the rhyme?

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In the second example, the translator has a choice: he may perform a literal translation,

which conveys the meanings of individual words but not the message of the complete work, or

he may prefer an interpretive translation, which takes liberties with the text but communicates

the message of the work as a whole. Most translation theorists agree that when it comes to

children’s book translations, the balance between conveying the meaning and the message of the

work often tips toward taking more liberties with the text in order to better communicate the

message of the work as a whole. However, translation theorists differ on whether taking liberties

with the text is negative or positive for readers, writers and published works.

Zahar Shavit alleges that “the translator of children’s literature can permit himself great

liberties regarding the text because of the peripheral position children’s literature occupies in the

polysystem” (171). In other words, the literary community does not apply the same standards of

accuracy to the translation of children’s literature as to religious texts or classic novels because

children’s literature is at the bottom of the literary hierarchy. According to Shavit, not only can a

translator of children’s literature “[adjust] plot, characterization, and language to the child’s level

of comprehension and his reading abilities,” but he can also manipulate the text in accordance

with the target culture’s social agenda, or “what society thinks is ‘good for the child’” (172).

But Finnish scholar, translator, and illustrator Riitta Oittinen “[does] not agree with views

where translation is seen as a mechanistic act […and] the translator’s action is relegated to

obscurity, if not invisibility” (3). Oittinen argues that instead of being invisible “repeaters” and

“reflectors” of the original text, translators should develop a dialogue with illustrators and

readers in order to determine what works best in the context of the culture. According to Lennart

Hellsing, there is nothing wrong with keeping the classics alive by keeping them readable (cited

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in Metcalf 295); according to Oittinen, “the original author benefits if her/his books are

translated in a live, dialogic way so they live on in the target language culture” (31).

Oittinen and Shavit would agree that like most other children’s book translations, Boris

Zakhoder’s translation of Winnie-the-Pooh from English to Russian tends toward the liberal.

Shavit would assert that this is because translations of children’s literature have a hidden agenda:

promoting society’s presupposition of “what is good for the child” (172). The evidence:

Englishman A.A. Milne wrote Winnie-the-Pooh at the turn of the last century, but by the middle

of the 1900s, the communist Soviet Union was on the outs with the capitalist Great Britain.

Could it be a coincidence that the Russian version of Winnie-the-Pooh doesn’t mention England

at all? Zakhoder’s version omits the part where Christopher Robin meets a bear named Winnie at

the London Zoo (Milne 3), which reveals that Winnie-the-Pooh is set in England. Additionally,

the Russian version makes no attempt to translate Briticisms like “Hallo!” (Milne 18),

“luncheon” (44), “stoutness” (25), “gorse-bush” (13) and “Oh, bother!” (27), which reflect the

fact that Pooh has an English accent.

By taking the bear out of the country, the Russian translation of Zakhoder subtracts the

satiric side of Winnie-the-Pooh. In both the English and Russian editions, Pooh has a passion for

doing stoutness exercises, going hunting, and drinking tea. In England, being stout, going

hunting, and drinking tea are seen as the distinguishing features of the well-bred English

gentleman, so by humorously recounting how Pooh’s pursuit of game, tea, and, of course, honey

gets him into trouble, Winnie-the-Pooh gently pokes fun at the well-bred British person. But in

Russia, these activities do not have quite the same associations. Without knowing that Pooh is

British from an extratextual source, Russian readers cannot comprehend that the character of

Pooh in Winnie-the-Pooh corresponds to a certain kind of person in British society.

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Unlike Shavit, I would like to argue that the English-to-Russian translation of Winnie-

the-Pooh is more liberal because English-to-Russian translators of children’s books are located

toward the top, not toward the bottom, of the literary ladder. In contrast to Russian-to-English

translators, who tend to be “seen and not heard,” English-to-Russian translators include such

literary luminaries as the “Russian Shakespeare,” Mikhail Lermontov; the Nobel Prize winner,

Boris Pasternak; the author of the controversial classic Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov; and the writer

of the popular poems for children, Samuil Marshak. Accordingly, the Winnie-the-Pooh

translator, Zakhoder, is a renowned writer and poet in his own right.

A renowned author is more likely to follow the Oittinen model of translation as a creative

process that adds to the original work rather than a mechanical process that just copies it. Instead

of trying to translate Milne’s work word for word, Zakhoder captured the spirit and style of

Milne with his own additions. For example, Zakhoder’s skill as writer and translator allowed him

to add humor that did not exist in the original Winnie-the-Pooh. When Zakhoder translated

“Pooh” as “Пух,” the Russian word for “fluff” or “stuffing,” he both captured the phonetic

pronunciation of the original text and added the humor of the fact that Pooh’s name is perfect for

a stuffed bear. Zakhoder added even more original humor by translating “Heffalump” (Pooh’s

mispronunciation of “elephant”) as “слонопотам,” a mishmash of the Russian words for

“elephant” (слон) and “hippopotamus” (гипопотам). But unlike Milne’s humor, Zakhoder’s

humor is not tied to the cultural context of a certain country. Consequently, Zakhoder’s additions

could even be considered a change for the better: an international interpretation of Winnie-the-

Pooh for the Russian-speaking world.

Oittinen suggests that when we judge translations of children’s literature, the layout and

the illustrations are just as important as the text itself (cited in Metcalf 295). In the English

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edition, the illustrations were created by E.H. Shepard, a neighbor of Milne, who based his

character designs on the stuffed animals of the real Christopher Robin, the boy for whom his

father, A.A. Milne, wrote Winnie-the-Pooh (see Figure 1). After Milne died, he left the rights to

Winnie-the-Pooh to four different groups, who came into conflict over who really owned the

biggest piece of the Pooh pie. Disney bought out the rights of one of the groups and basically

won the “battle of the books” over who can legally employ the characters (“Disney Claims

Victory in Pooh Tussle”) (see Figure 2). The result has been a homogenous image of Winnie-the-

Pooh in the English-speaking world.

Unlike in the United States, no one group in Russia owned the exclusive right to draw

Winnie-the-Pooh. In fact, after the Soviet government banned the Shepard-Disney version

because Walt Disney was allegedly anti-communist, it commissioned a new version that

encouraged Russian illustrators to create a wide variety of original character designs (“Overview

of Jurisprudence on the Overlap between Copyright and Trademarks, including New Types of

Marks”) (see Figure 3). The result has been a heterogeneous constellation of interpretations of

Winnie-the-Pooh in Russian.

The “translation” of the illustrations created a tradeoff between appropriateness for the

original text and appropriateness for the target culture. On the one hand, English illustrator

Shepard had access to A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin, and the original stuffed animals, so his

illustrations were probably the most faithful to Milne’s original vision. Additionally, Shepard’s

illustrations complemented the playful humor of Pooh in the context of the original text (see

Figure 4). For example, in the scene in which Pooh climbs the bee tree, the text is positioned

vertically next to the picture of Pooh climbing the tree. The height of the column of text

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highlights the height of Pooh’s honey tree. The interplay between the text and the illustrations

contributed to the cult-like status of Winnie-the-Pooh in the English-speaking culture.

On the other hand, the Russian illustrations complemented Winnie-the-Pooh in the

context of the target culture. Arguably, the Russian illustrations reflect the cultural appropriation

of an English-speaking icon into Russian culture (see Figure 5). For example, because the bear is

often considered the symbol of Russia, most Russians have a clear conception of how a bear

should look. Although Pooh has been drawn by various and sundry Russian artists since the turn

of the century, most of his incarnations still look surprisingly similar to Misha, the bear who

served as the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Specifically, the Russian bears have darker

coats, larger heads, shorter limbs, and rounder tummies than their English-speaking counterparts

(see Figure 6). Additionally, Pooh’s Misha-like character design may be more reflective of

Russia’s cultural reality. On a discussion board titled “Russian Pooh,” a informal Pooh fan

named Lev Polyakov wrote, “Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh looks like he ate too much honey (i.e.,

he’s too sugary), while on the other hand, the Russian Pooh feels like I could talk to him about

the war in Iraq, while drinking some vodka. Even though I don’t drink, I would much prefer the

latter.” The cultural relevance of “Russian Pooh” helps explain why Winnie-the-Pooh was

equally popular in Russia: in 1985 alone, Vinni-Pukh sold over 3.5 million copies (Pooh

Properties Trust).

In translations of children’s literature, the balance between conveying the meaning of

individual words and the message of the work as a whole often tips toward communicating the

spirit and style of the author rather than the word for word translation of the text. Shavit alleges

that the literary community does not apply the same standards of accuracy to translations of

children’s literature because children’s literature is at the bottom of the literary food chain.

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However, Oittinen argues that the literary community benefits when children’s books are

translated in accordance with the cultural context of the reading audience. I argue that we should

expand our criteria for evaluating translations to include not only textual accuracy but cultural

relevance. To paraphrase Eva-Maria Metcalf, a critic of Oittinen, we should ask not only “Is this

translation accurate?” but “Is this translation appropriate for the message of the author in the

context of the age, society, and culture of the audience?” (293).

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Figure 1: Shepard’s Pooh

Christopher Robin’s Stuffed Animals

Shepard’s Illustrations

Figure 2: Disney’s Pooh-Opoly

Disney’s Animated Pooh

Disney’s Creepy CG Pooh

Figure 3: The Many Faces of Russian Pooh

Figure 4: The Battle of the Poohs

Russian Pooh English Pooh

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Figure 5: Cultural Appropriation in Action

Disney Pooh Nesting Dolls

Figure 6: Shepard’s Pooh

Misha, Moscow Russian Pooh Olympics Mascot

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Works Cited

“Disney Claims Victory in Pooh Tussle.” 5 Nov. 2002. BBC News. 16 Jan. 2008.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2404045.stm>.

Metcalf, Eva-Maria. “The Rhythm of Texts: Translating for Children.” The Lion and the

Unicorn. 19, 2 (1995): 292-96. Project Muse. 11 April 2007. <http://muse.jhu.edu/

login?uri=/journals/lion_and_the_unicorn/v019/19.2br_oittinen.html>.

Milne, A. A. The World of Pooh. New York: Dutton, 1957.

Milne, A.A. Винни-Пух и Все- Все - Все . Trans. Boris Zakhoder. New York: Dutton, 1967.

Oittinen, Riitta. Translating for Children. New York: Garland, 2000. University of Tampere

Website. 16 Jan. 2008.

<http://books.google.com/books?id=uT_7q3HzqF8C&dq=riita+oittinen+translating+for+

children&pg=PP1&ots=Uz0IdFbdQb&sig=Gx47sZo747pWi8IYcxgBX-

j4y0o&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/ search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-

8&rls=SUNA,SUNA:2006-47,SUNA:en&q=riita+oittinen+

translating+for+children&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail>.

“Overview of Jurisprudence on the Overlap between Copyright and Trademarks, including New

Types of Marks.” 16 Nov. 2007. World Intellectual Property Organization. 17 Jan. 2008.

<http://www.wipo.int/sct/en/comments/pdf/sct18/ru_2.pdf>.

Polyakov, Lev. “Lev Polyakov Says.” 3 March 2007. Cartoon Brew. 11 April 2007.

<http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/russian-pooh>.

Pooh Properties Trust. “Alan Alexander Milne, Author.” 1999-2008. Pooh Corner. 17 Jan. 2008.

<http://www.poohcorner.com/Alan-Alexander-Milne-Author.html>.

Shavit, Zahar. “Translation of Children’s Literature as a Function of its Position in the Literary

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Polysystem. Poetics Today 2, 4 (1981): 171-79. JSTOR. 16 Jan. 2008.

<http://www.jstor.org/view/03335372/ap020008/02a00160/0>.

Pictures

McNichols, Jeremiah. “Winnie-the-Pooh in Russia.” 15 Feb. 2007. Blogspot. 11 April 2007.

<http://thinkingpictures.blogspot.com/2006/11/winnie-pooh-in-russia.html>.

“Misha.” 4 April 2007. Wikipedia. 11 April 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misha>

Russian Insider. “Winnie-the-Pooh, Russian Version.” 22 Dec. 2005. Blogspot. 11 April 2007.

<http://russian-insider.blogspot.com/2005/12/winnie-pooh-russian-version.html>.